Return to Diabolo
by Jiia-chan
Summary: [Diabolo, RenRai,KyouyaTsukiko]After the end of the series. The boys come back to life, but all is not well. Many problems stop the lovers from living happily ever after, including morgue drawers, perverted swordsmen and hyperactive yaoi fangirls like me.
1. Chapter 1 Wake Up Call

**Hi, everyone! Jiia here. Guess what? I've finally got around to typing up my first Diabolo fic! It makes me so happy. Happy dance Indeed. This has been in the works for so long, the book has dust on it. About a centimeter of dust, actually. And stickers. Many, many stickers. Anyway, I have the first bunch of chapters writen, and must simply tpye them. Which will take a while. But that's ok. Once I run out of writen stuff, thats where this will REALLY get interesting. BTW, this is a multi-chapter fic, in case you didn't know already. It takes place after the series. Gasp, you say, how can it take place after the series when the cast majority of characters died? Ha, says I. Read and find out.**

**I don't own them. If I did, you wouldn't be able to buy Diabolo in chapters. You'd need to special order it or something. **

**The Magic of Love**

**Chapter 1: Wake Up Call**

Ren was dreaming. It was a good dream. He and his mom and Mio and Nana and Rei and all the others where laughing and playing. They where like they had been before the Diabolo. They where as they should be. They where happy. Ren was happy. But he was sad, because Rai wasn't with him.

He could have dreamt forever. He would have stayed in that wonderful world forever, only Rai wasn't there. Rai was calling to him from far away. Ren wanted to sleep, but Rai was telling him to wake up.

Opening his eyes felt like picking up a minivan, and apparently just as fruitless. This place was so dark, he couldn't tell if his eyes where open or closed.

Rai was close. He could feel him. He was a warm ghost in the darkness, his soft breath brushing by Ren's lips, his gentle hand enclosing Ren's in warmth.

As he took his first waking breath, he realized that he hadn't been breathing at all previously. This was probably a good thing, as the air he sucked into his lungs was stagnant and smelled disturbingly like formaldehyde. He was lying on cold metal, with more of the same at his back. A cold sheet was draped over him from his shoulders down, doing nothing to stem off the deathly chill. The only heat in this disturbing new world came from Rai, and it was meagre at best. Still, the comforting warmth coming from his friend was much preferable to the aching cold deep inside his chest. Ren shuddered and scooted closer to the other boy, blushing in the dark as he realized there was nothing between them but air.

"Good morning, Ren." Rai whispered. The words where barely breathed against Ren's lips, and yet they send shivers down his spine.

"Rai?" Ren could barely recognize his own voice. "Where are we…?"

"I'm not sure…" Rai shifted, putting a little more room between them. "There's not a lot of air in here, though."

For a moment, Ren was hurt. Then he was cold and hurt. Then he was too hurt to be cold. He moved closer again, desperate for the heat.

"I'm cold, Rai. Don't go away."

For a long moment, Rai was silent, tense against Ren's body. Slowly, as the air became less and less appetizing with each breath, Rai relaxed.

"I won't leave you, Ren."

"Good." Ren mumbled, fully ready to go back to sleep.

"Ren?" Rai looked down at what he assumed was his friend's head. He couldn't tell in the dark, but it seemed that his head should be where Rai was looking.

"Mm?" Ren groaned, not bothering to move.

Rai felt relief flood through his system. He had been worried that Ren would go back to sleep, and if he did that… Rai didn't want to think about it.

"I…" Rai swallowed. "I'm sorry."

He could almost hear Ren blink.

"For wha?"

"For…" Rai couldn't bear himself to say it. "For everything. I didn't mean to, I didn't want to…" Rai paused, startled by the how thick his voice was. "I caused you so much pain… How can you ever forgive me…?"

Rai waited, already cringing. He was sure Ren would hate him. All this was his fault.

Ren wasn't quite sure what Rai was talking about. Nothing the boy said seemed to make sense. It didn't help that he wasn't finishing his sentences, either. Still, it took painfully long for his mind to reconfigure and make him remember.

And when he did, he felt everything just stop.

_Rai stood upon the roof, Mio by his side. With blood on his hands and evil in his eyes, he spoke in a hollow voice that was totally and completely not him._

_"Poor Ren… Come to me. I'll put your misery to an end. That's right, Ren. I got you involved. I destroyed your happy little family… And not by accident, either." _

He felt himself scream, the brutal sound tearing itself out of his chest with enough force to temporarily overwhelm the pain in his heart. He felt his body trying to curl in on itself in the cramped metal box, probably hurting himself in the process. He felt Rai grab him by the shoulders and pull him tight to his chest, trying anything to make him stop screaming. He felt everything, but all he could see was Rai's smile, and all he could head was Rai's laugh, and all he could taste was the blood raining down.

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**Gasp! Cliff hanger! Read on, my good friends, for I have CHAPTER TWO ALREADY TYPED. Oh, and don't expect the chapters to be much longer. I seperate them judging by where the action stalls or skips ahead or whatever. I actually put together two chapters for this one. So bite me. Mwa. **  



	2. Chapter 2 'Please Don't Hate Me'

**Ha ha ha... Chapter two! Already! Le Gasp! Finally, our favourite swordsman comes in. I warn you, there will be some OOC for Kyouya. And Tsukiko. As me and my friends took them and made them normal. Sort of. You'll see what I mean.  
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**Magic of Love**

**Chapter Two- 'Please Don't Hate Me.' **

Kyouya stopped dead in his tracks. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest, it physically hurt. Afraid to even take a breath, he stood stock still in the middle of the street, listening to the ever-present hum of the voices.

He didn't even notice the car screeching to a halt less than a foot away. People where staring at him. The driver was shouting things at him that really shouldn't have been said in public. He ignored them completely.

Without even glancing at the gathering crowd, Kyouya bolted, attracting ever more strange looks as he danced and skipped in the streets, laughing all the way.

Ren stared blankly into the absolute darkness. Rai was still there, so close and yet somehow so far away. Rai was in a world of darkness and cold metal walls and the smell of death. Ren was far away from there, in a nightmare of terrible laughter and sickening grins.

He knew only horror for the man who led him in his warm arms. Rai had taken everything from him. He had destroyed his family, turned even his own mother against him. Rai had stolen his very soul. He had admitted it and laughed.

That laughter rang in his ears with all its mocking, hurtful tones, fuelling the ever building rage. It filled his mind until it was the only sound he had ever heard. He clenched his hands into fists, ready to do some serious damage.  
And yet… He was beginning to hear something else. It was a real sound, not an echo of a memory. It reverberated through the tiny metal prison until it was nothing less than the discordant melody of a broken soul, singing out its sorrows to an ignorant God. At first, he couldn't tell what it was, only that it made him so unbearably sad. Then, suddenly, without warning, it was as clear to him as perfect glass.

Rai was weeping.

"Don't cry, Rai. Please don't cry…" Ren felt tears forming at the corners of his own eyes. How could he have ever have hated Rai? Rai was his protector. Rai was his salvation.

"Please don't hate me." Rai sobbed, his strong arms pulling Ren tight against his chest. "I couldn't stand it if you hated me."

"I don't hate you." Ren choked back tears, struggling to keep his voice from cracking and making everything worse. "I could never hate you, Rai. I… Love you."

The words felt so right. They felt like he had finally remembered what had been sitting on the tip of his tongue. They certainly had the desired effect. Rai hiccupped, shocked. Ren smiled, imagining the priceless expression undoubtedly on his face.

"Now hush." Ren whispered, somehow managing to wrap his arms around Rai's neck without dislocating anything. "I forgive you, Rai. I forgive you everything."

For a moment, Ren could almost see the glimmer of Rai's eyes. Then, he didn't see anything at all. Rai's warm lips pressed lightly against his own, and he was neither surprised nor particularly bothered.

In fact, he quite enjoyed it.

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**Awe, ain't it cute? Don't you just love them? I have little notes all scribbled in the margines. Lets see... 'Little Poetry Moment Here.' ' ;;> Aww...' ' oo. 3 Aww...' and...' 0.0> EEP!' In that order. If you can guess where all those went, I'll let you name a character. Or maybe even put your own character in, if I don't already have a character there.**

**NEXT TIME: The Mystery of the Metal Box! Tsukiko and Kyouya Team Up! Hiromi has Bedhead! And More!**


	3. Chapter 3 A little help from a friend

"A little help from a friend."

_Owch... I haven't updated this in so long... Oh well. Please forgive me, one and all. Oh yes, this is the story which was once entitled 'The Magic of Love', by the way. The title made me sick every time I looked at it, so I changed it. I need to do some more editing, though. Everything sounds so angsty in the little summary thing. Oh well. Anyways... Here's the chapter. Enjoy!_

_With love, Jiia_

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"Are you certain? I mean, are you sure it wasn't someone else?"

Tsukiko looked like she was having trouble believing what he was saying. He didn't blame her. He was having trouble believing it himself.

"I'm sure. It was them. I'd know the feel of their souls anywhere." Kyouya looked straight in the eyes of the only other survivor of that final battle; Until 8:24 that morning, that is.

"That's... Wow. Ren and Rai... Are alive." Tsukiko stared off into space. She seemed to be taking the news quite well.

"There are a couple of questions, however. Is Rai still Nebrios? And where the hell are they, anyways?"

Tsukiko snapped out of her half-daze, looking at him with eyes widened by a strange sort of dawning terror.

"Everyone thinks they're dead, Kyouya. Where do they put dead people?"

For a moment, they stared at one another from across the boy's apartment.

"Morgue."

They rushed out the door, running all the way to Hiromi's.

Hiromi yawned as she turned the doorknob. The door instantly exploded inward, closely followed by a very exited Kyouya and a decidedly frantic Tsukiko.

"Hiromi!! Hiromi, what are you doing sitting on the floor?! We need you and your computing machine!" Kyouya grabbed her and pulled her to her feet.

She blinked at them, looking more like her old, frizzy-headed self than she had in months.

"My computer? Why? What's going on?" She looked at them suspiciously, crossing her arms over her chest. She had seen them a couple of times since the world had almost come to an abrupt end. Neither of them had ever held anything but contempt for her computer-using ways.

"No time." Tsukiko grabbed her and pushed her towards the laptop sitting on the counter. "We need you to find a morgue, right away."

"A morgue? Why?" she asked, pulling up a stool and opening up the internet. "Did someone die?"

"Something like that." Kyouya grinned devilishly.

Hiromi suddenly felt very uneasy indeed.

Tsukiko put a comforting hand on her shoulder, watching the computer screen with an intensity that looked decidedly out of place on the faerie girl's face.

"Ren and Rai are alive. They're probably stuck in one of those creepy little air-tight drawers next to Bob the Homeless Hobo. We have to get them out, before they get head lice. Or suffocate."

"You sure have your priorities in order, Tsu-chan." Kyouya rolled his eyes.

"WHAT?!" Hiromi shot off her stool, sending it clattering to the ground. "Ren's ALIVE?!"

She burst into explosive, childlike tears. She flailed her slender arms, coming uncomfortably close to hitting both of them. As she came closer and closer to absolute hysteria, Tsukiko, with an absolutely disgusted look, slapped her across her pretty tear-streaked face.

She froze in mid-flail, looking at the other girl as if she had just grown an extra head. A red handprint slowly materialized upon her pale, perfect cheek.

Kyouya let out a strangled gasp, rushing over to the shell-shocked young woman and pulling her into his arms.

"Oh, you poor girl!" He murmured, stroking her long black hair in a 'comforting' manner. "Mean ol' Tsu-chan has no understanding of the delicate inner workings of the sane mind. She can't be held accountable for her actions."

Tsukiko shot him a look that would have undoubtedly killed him had the sun been down. She was about to come back with an equally insulting remark as to his limited mental capabilities when she noticed his hand slowly creeping down the still-stunned girl's back as his other continued to stroke her hair.

Hiromi's eyes widened in continued shock and outrage even as Tsukiko stalked towards them. It was Kyouya's turn to stand in shock as a twin pair of hand prints appeared on either side of his face.

Tsukiko and Hiromi stomped off to the laptop and set to work.


	4. Chapter 4 Rescue

Rescue

_Hurrah for regular updates. School has now started, so updates might be a little delayed. _

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Rai was happy.

He knew he had no right to be happy, but he was. They might have been stuck in a cold, air-tight metal box awaiting immanent suffocation and death in one another's arms, but they were together. It was no snow covered mountain, but it would do.

Ren's breathing was slow and even. He seemed to have fallen asleep. Rai was fairly sure it was something a bit more sinister in nature, as they were quickly running out of oxygen. He forced himself to ignore the – or realist, depending on how you saw things,-- yammering on in his brain.

_Just sleeping. That's all. You're just sleeping..._

_And now I can sleep too..._

He slowly let himself drift off into the world of dreams.

In neither world did Ren ever leave his arms.

Ren felt strange. He felt like he was floating. He imagined them drifting through an endless empty ocean, him and Rai. They'd drift forever on the endless ocean waves.

Suddenly, it didn't feel like breathing water. The air was wonderfully fresh and clean and warm. The pure, bluish-white light poured into his soul, finally giving him some measure of peace after the long nightmare dark.

"Is this heaven?" He wondered, letting his green eyes drift open, expecting God, or a choir of angels, or at least Grandma Ethel.

And looked into the amused brown eyes of a certain swordsman. For the second time.

"Ah... No. Not quite, homeless boy." Kyouya flashed him a positively evil smile. "Although by the looks of things, you two love-birds are comin' real close."

Kyouya grinned, looking over the two entangled boys and sincerely enjoying the thought of the attempted explanations. Ren turned an almost alarming shade of red, especially considering he had been almost blue when they had finally found the right drawer.

The flushing boy was awkwardly trying to separate himself from his friend, which was proving to be a rather... Difficult task. Even though he was still apparently unconscious, the other boy was bound and determined to never let poor little Ren go.

Ren finally gave up being gentle and tried to shove the other boy off of him. Rai just pulled him closer, a strange, almost knowing smile on his sleepy features, sending them both rolling off the narrow metal platform.

Tsukiko glanced at the pair, then looked away, her cheeks burning under her black veil of hair as the sheet that had previously been covering them fell away.

Ren jumped to his feet as he finally escaped Rai's arms. He quickly realized things were a bit drafty, and turned an ever darker shade of red. This had better end soon, or Ren would die of facial exsanguination.

Rai yawned and stretched, seemingly unbothered by his current state of undress.

"Oh, hello there Kyouya! How nice to see you again. And there you are, Tsukiko. Are you here to rescue us?" He gave them a friendly smile.

Either he was either extremely unobservant, or a bit of an exhibitionist.

Rai turned his blue eyes to his red-faced 'friend'. The smile dropped off his face and a look of concern took its place.

"Ren! What's wrong? Why are you all red?" He jumped to his feet, running a casual hand along the other boy's cheek.

Ren mumbled something incoherent, struggling to find somewhere to look that didn't make his facial capillaries explode. He settled for squeezing his eyes shut as his friend fussed over him, wrapping the paper thin sheet around his slender body.

Kyouya grinned. It really was too good. Ren looked like a giant tomato, or a bright red lollypop. Rai was fussing and clucking like a mother hen, totally shameless. And Tsukiko... Well, she was sulking in a corner with a tomato-head to rival Ren's. He couldn't resist.

"Well, if our friends from the nudist colony would care to stop fooling about with that sheet, I'd like to get out of this creepy place before someone realises the dead are walking and calls Buffy."

"But where are we gonna go?" Ren blinked.

And realized exactly what Kyouya had said.

And began plotting the swordsman's 'accidental' and immanent demise.

"We go out the way we came." Once again, a purely evil grin slid onto his crafty face.


	5. Chapter 5 Escape

Magic of Love- C5

I update! No reviews make me sad... tears Although I can understand it, I've been changing the settings on this story around a lot. Ronald is mine, by the way. In all his awesomeness. All his lost awesomeness. Don't steal him. And don't worry- Even though the Rainess makes it seem like Kyouya is in denial, he is totally straight. For once. Imagine that, me writing a straight character. Will the wonders never cease.

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Escape

Ronald wasn't lost. He was simply taking the long route to the lab. Just stopping and smelling the putrefaction. Until the sun went down.

Ronald stopped a strange-looking trio of young doctors to ask for directions.

"Oh, hello, excuse me, but where is the... Wait a minute... Aren't you three a bit young to be doctors?"

They barely looked eighteen. The creepy one with the short brown hair might have been a bit older than he looked, but the pretty sweet-faced girl and the other boy with the strange, secretive smile didn't look old enough to drive, let alone get a medical degree.

"Oh, we're not." Sad the creepy boy.

The girl shot him a nasty look that made Ronald reassess her innocent features. The other boy clarified for his grinning friend.

"We're students at the university. We're conducting a study on the physical manifestation of psychopathic tendencies in the brain." The boy smiled at him.

_What a charming young man, _Ronald thought. _A little off, what with that long black hair and those thick, round glasses. So odd to see such glasses among the younger generations, but a nice boy none the less._

"Fascinating." Ronald looked down at the sheet-draped body on the gurney.

"Really gets us going." The creepy boy grinned, skilfully ignoring the quick jab to the ribs the girl sent his way.

Ronald looked at him over his spectacles. _That one has a thing or two to learn about manners._

"Well... Good luck to you all." The trio thanked him and continued down the hall.

As they walked off, he could have sworn the body moved.

And he still didn't know where the lab was.

Kyouya let out an ecstatic whoop as soon as the doors to the building closed behind them., flinging his pilfered lab coat into the air.

"Nice going, homeless boy! I have NO idea what you were talking about back there, but you sure can lie through your teeth!"

Rai smiled quietly as he wrapped his own stolen lab coat around the shivering Ren.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment."

Tsukiko snorted and clambered into the driver's seat of the waiting van.

Kyouya couldn't help laughing at the sight of Ren all wrapped up in the thigh-length coat, all gangly bare legs and arms hidden in too-long sleeves, clinging to the too-tight fabric of Rai's stolen turtleneck as the taller boy all but carried him into the looming black vehicle.

As soon as the pair clambered into the van, they were glomped from behind. Hiromi practically squealed as she hugged them over and over, bouncing on the seat.

"You're alive, your alive, you died but you're alive!! Iieeeeeeeee!!" She jumped up and down on the abused springs, lunging at them over the back of the seat, hugging them so hard she knocked the wind out of Rai.

"Nice to see you too, Hiro." The boy gasped, peeling her arms off him and settling the drowsy Ren into the seat next to him. The smaller boy yawned and snuggled closer, burying his face in the warm black folds of Rai's pilfered shirt.

Kyouya chuckled and slid into the passenger seat.

_This should be an interesting trip._

He proceeded to dive out of the car almost immediately as Tsukiko burnt rubber backwards and narrowly avoided a telephone pole.

Rai gently stroked Ren's short blond hair as the boy snored quietly, head resting on his best friend's denim-covered lap. Rai smiled, remembering the endless hours he has spent watching the boy sleep in the not-too-distant past. Now, however, his dreams seemed untainted by the touch of evil. He seemed almost angelic.

Hiromi, having finally run out of energy, had keeled over in mid sentence, snoring contently in the back seat. Tsukiko slumbered peacefully in the passenger seat.

Kyouya refused to admit he was lost. According to him, he was just 'taking the long route to avoid pursuit'. Ren WAS supposed to be the dead leader of a satanic cult, after all.

Kyouya looked back at them in the rear-view mirror.

"You know something, Rai?" he asked, speaking quietly to avoid waking the various sleepers.

"Quite a few things, Kyo. What kind of thing did you have in mind?" The boy gave him one of his trademark all-knowing smiles.

Kyouya bit back a scathing retort. The nickname Rai had recently bestowed upon him bothered him immensely, mostly because of its relation to a certain Shojo manga he would never, ever have admitted to reading.

"You are an absolutely shameless bastard." He glared at the black haired boy in the mirror, his voice somewhat more spiteful than was really necessary. "I mean, you never even blushed!"

Rai's serene smile took on a strange edge, almost a smirk.

"Neither did you, Kyo. In fact, I seem to recall you staring at both of us quite blatantly. I wonder what that makes you?"

Kyouya gaped. He couldn't find words to answer. Not coherent ones, at any rate. Rai's logic was inescapable, and although it was oh so very _wrong,_ he couldn't figure out any way to disprove it short of incurring the wrath of the beautiful young woman snoozing next to him.

Eventually, he just grit his teeth and forced his mind to become engrossed in the simple act of driving.

Rai smiled and returned to watching Ren as his slender, disfigured hand slid over his lovely golden hair.


End file.
